Gustav Seyffarth was a German-American

German American

German Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...

 Egyptologist, born at Uebigan in Saxony

Saxony

The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....

. He studied at the University of Leipzig

University of Leipzig

The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...

 and under Campolion in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 in 1820. He became professor

Professor

A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 of philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 at Leipzig in 1825 and professor of archæology

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

 in 1829. From 1826 to 1829 he visited the principal museum

Museum

A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...

s of Germany, France, England, and Holland and collected copies of Egyptian inscriptions and Copt

Copt

The Copts are the native Egyptian Christians , a major ethnoreligious group in Egypt....

ic manuscripts. In 1856 he came to America and became professor of Church history and archæology at Concordia College

Concordia Seminary

Concordia Seminary is located in Clayton, Missouri, an inner-ring suburb on the western border of St. Louis, Missouri. The institution's primary mission is to train pastors, deaconesses, missionaries, chaplains, and church leaders for the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod . The current president of...

, St. Louis. From 1859 he resided in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. Seyffarth was an earnest student of Egyptology, but wrongly held that the hierglyphic

Egyptian hieroglyphs

Egyptian hieroglyphs were a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians that combined logographic and alphabetic elements. Egyptians used cursive hieroglyphs for religious literature on papyrus and wood...

characters, with scarcely an exception, were pure phonograms. His principal works are: Rudimenta Hierglyphica (1826); Systema Astronomiæ Ægyptiacæ (1826–33); Unser Alphabet ein Abbild des Tierkreiss (1834); Alphabeta Genuina Ægyptiorum et Asianorum (1840); Die Grundsätze der Mythologie und der alten Religionsgeschichte (1843) and Grammatica Ægyptiaca (1855).